The use of high-efficiency products in the treatment of aqueous suspensions of particulate, solid, water-insoluble materials has become increasingly prevalent in recent years. Industry is therefore continually searching for new systems which can be employed to facilitate the dewatering of awueous suspensions of organic and inorganic materials in water and waste water treatments, mineral processing, paper manufacture, and the like.
Recently, polymeric compositions based on imidazoline monomers have been introduced for the treatment of such suspensions. However, these imidazoline-based polymers fail to retain their effectiveness at high pH due to hydrolytic instability. The difficulties inherent in the use of the polymers produced from imidazoline monomers are largely overcome by the employement of chemically related 2-vinylimidazole polymers and their method of prepration as disclosed by Lawson in U.S. Pat. No. 2,710,870 and as later modified by Overberger as disclosed in the Journal of Polymer Science, Polymer Letter Edition Vol. 11, p. 465 (1973). While the use of these 2-vinylimidazole polymers overcomes the problems of stability inherent in the employment of the imidazoline polymers, these 2-vinylimidazole polymers per se do not possess the requisite charge to enable these compositions to be very effective for the treatment of such suspensions. Thus, there exists the need for other novel monomers capable of forming polymers effective in the treatment of aqueous particulate suspensions.